Tristan Walker Raises $6.9 Million From Andreessen, Others

As a onetime entrepreneur-in-residence at Andreessen Horowitz who had also worked at Foursquare, Tristan Walker has insider cred in the venture-capital world. Still, when raising money for a company selling shaving products to African-American men, he was reminded of the cultural divide between his customers and tech establishment.

Tristan Walker

Walker & Co.

Walker had to convince the mostly white venture investors that there was a market for Bevel, his single-blade razor designed to avoid creating the bumps that he says are often incurred by men with coarse and curly hair.

In one pitch meeting, Walker likened the prospects for Bevel to the Proactiv brand of anti-acne skin products. An investor was skeptical that razor bumps are as big a social issue as acne.

“If you talk to 10 of my black male friends, eight will tell you this is a problem,” the 29-year-old says he told her.

Today, Walker & Co. is announcing that it raised $6.9 million in early-round financing from Andreessen Horowitz, Upfront Ventures, Collaborative Fund and Ron Johnson, who ran retail operations for Apple before becoming a short-lived chief executive of J.C. Penney, among other investors.

Jeff Jordan, an Andreessen partner, will join the board of Walker & Co. “The personal care market for people of color is a multibillion dollar market that is underserved,” he said in an interview.

Andreessen traditionally invests in tech companies, and Jordan acknowledges that a consumer-products company — even one with an e-commerce infrastructure — isn’t the “techiest” in the firm’s portfolio. But Walker developed part of his company’s strategy while working at Andreessen in 2012.

Jordan says he and Ben Horowitz, another partner, became close with Walker. “Tristan is a big part of the investment thesis,” he says.

Walker was born in the Jamaica, Queens, section of New York to a single mother who raised him in nearby Flushing. He went to The Hotchkiss School, an elite board school in Connecticut, on a scholarship. He was never taught how to properly shave, or how to deal with the unique problem of razor bumps faced by men of color.

Multiblade razors, Walker says, tug at hair follicles and cut them just beneath the skin, which can lead to curly hair re-entering pores and becoming ingrown. The Bevel cuts hair at the skin’s surface. Retail stores have few options for black men, he says, and some of what’s available is packaged as if it is still the 1970s, with pictures of men in Jheri curls. “It’s embarrassing,” Walker says.

The Bevel line of products

Walker & Co.

His Bevel brand of razors, shaving creams and salves has sold well, with more than 90% of customers returning for more products, Walker says. He won’t reveal revenue or sales numbers, though.

Walker plans to use the newly raised money to develop new and existing products, and to get Bevel into brick-and-mortar locations like barber shops and specialty stores. He also is planning in-person and video-conference educational programs to teach African Americans how to shave.

Walker’s story in Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley is well known: He became director of business development at Foursquare in New York while still a student at Stanford Graduate School of Business. (He sent an unsolicited email to Foursquare’s founders and ended up with a gig.) He is also the co-founder of Code2040, a nonprofit organization that works to find jobs in the tech sector for talented black and Latino engineering students.

Now he faces a big obstacle: changing the consumer habits of African American men who are wary of shaving.

Jordan, the Andreessen partner, says that a few weeks ago, he met with two “affluent black men,” one an athlete. “When I mentioned shaving to them, they both jerked their heads back,” he says. “This one guy is so afraid of shaving — he’s willing to go against Shaquille O’Neal but he’s worried about trying a new razor.”

“The story of this market and of the needs of these underserved men is my story,” Walker says, “and I’m excited because there is incredible opportunity.”

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